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There are a lot of folks that believe him over Rex Barber, although I can't
imagine why. The simplist way to prove who is a liar is to look through the
Time/Life books on air combat: they have a two page spread devoted to
Lamphier's "story", accompanied by several photographs of Admiral Yamamoto's
Betty laying in the jungle that absolutely refute his claims!

I know a lot of people think Lanphier should be given credit, but his own claim
of "sawing off the wing of the bomber, causing it to roll over and crash into
the jungle and explode" just plain doesn't match what happened to Iso's Betty.

Col. Rex Barber was the finest man I have known, and one of the men most
deserving of the MoH.

If he believed it's true, he's not lying--and since the proportion of claims
to
actual, verifiable Japanese losses is something like 3 or 4 to 1, he has a
lot
of company.

This is different, Tom. Lanphier took credit for a bomber that never existed.
He could not have attacked -any- Betty in the manner he described, simply
because by his own statement, he was up dealing with the escorts while Rex was
trading shots with the Admiral's bomber. Since the only other Betty within
the airspace was out over water, simply put, there was no Betty for Tom L. to
attack. Its not as if Rex attacked then broke away, leaving the Betty alive
long enough for Lanphier to make an attack - Rex slid in between the escorts
and the Betty's 20mm tail gun and blasted away until it bellied into the
jungle. It doesn't leave any room for Lanphier to even make an attack. Yet
when he landed, he insisted "I got the Admiral's plane!"

That, in my opinion, discounts any post flight analysis that might give him any
credit for something he did not do.